Year: 2016
Type: article
Abstract: This qualitative study grounded in critical literacy and queer theory investigated three elementary students along with myself, assuming the role as teacher to explore how topics related to sexuality and gender could occur through literary conversations.The first purpose was to focus on how young children respond to LGBTQ-themed representations within children's texts via critical literacy.Three participant responses were noted toward LGBTQ-themed children's literature and to the topic of sexuality and gender in general: (1) Student Rejects, (2) Student Replicates, or (3) Student Recreates.The second purpose was to examine how the researcher, assuming the role of teacher, could enact critical literacy with a focus on sexuality and gender.Two findings were noted: (1) Focusing on Power, and (2) Teaching Critical Language.Focusing on Power included recognizing the significance of incorporating diverse texts as well as directing the participants' attention to the various representations in the texts.Teaching Critical Language entailed the importance of modeling critical language through posing questions and encouraging participants to make personal connections.A cross-case analysis underscored that participants produced four similar responses: (1) family is not heterosexually or homosexually limiting, (2) questioning the concept of not marrying, (3) resisting representations of princesses, particularly boy princesses and (4) using critical literacy to insert individual and meaningful topics.The differences among the participants were: (1) the individual and unique vies about family structures and (2) the participants' views according to color preferences and gender.This study has implications for future research as well as demonstrates how schools, including teachers and students, can assist each other in exploring subjectivity by questioning the normative practice and ideologies portrayed in text through literacy conversations and thus support equity and social justice.
Author: Becky L. Bridgman
Institution: University of Cincinnati
Language: English
Subfield: Gender Studies
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
SDG: Quality education
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2599035636